Abortion debate dogs envoy to Vatican - St. John's professor would rather talk social justice.

Minneapolis Star-Tribune ^ | 11/8/2009 | Kevin Diaz

[Saije]

As the son of Cuban immigrants, Miguel Diaz was drawn to Barack Obama for his ability to cross cultures and engage people from different backgrounds.

Now, plucked from the relative obscurity of central Minnesota to be President Obama's envoy to the Vatican, the St. John's University theologian finds himself in the vortex of an unwelcome battle over what it means to be a Catholic in the service of a president who supports abortion rights.

All sides say the debate was inevitable, no matter whom Obama sent to the Holy See. But for Diaz, the swirling debate seems as confining as the white tie and tails he wore last month for his first audience with Pope Benedict, a theological conservative determined to return the church to traditional Catholic values.

"As a person of faith, I am stunned by any effort that seeks to divide us," Diaz said in a phone interview from Rome with the Star Tribune. "One of the things I have embraced from this presidency is the effort to bring various persons together to engage in conversations even when we disagree."

To the extent that anybody outside the church had ever heard of Diaz, the 46-year-old professor from Collegeville, Minn., is identified with a left-of-center theology that emphasizes human rights and social justice.

That's disconcerting for conservative Catholics, who see opposition to abortion as a central moral tenet of the church. When Diaz presented his credentials as the new U.S. ambassador last month, Pope Benedict asserted the "need for a clear discernment with regard to issues touching the protection of human dignity and respect for the inalienable right to life from the moment of conception to natural death ... The Church insists on the unbreakable link between an ethics of life and every other aspect of social ethics."

[Saije]

He couldn't have thought the job was going to be easy.

[pgyanke]

"The common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights--for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture--is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination"

-- Pope John Paul II, "Christifideles Laici"

"While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia."

-- Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (before he was Pope Benedict XVI)

[GloriaJane]

What got me was the one and only comment so far that says they are pro-choice not pro-abortion.

Pro-choice is pro-death any way you look at it. The whole point of their having a choice is to do what?...kill the baby.

Pro-choice = pro-death but pro-life = pro-life!

[GloriaJane]

[Docktor Doom]

Cardinal Pelosi, Interpreter of Vatican Doctrine

[Arthur McGowan]

In the very first sentence is the proof that he’s a doofus. Obama has NEVER demonstrated ANY ability or desire to engage people of any background other than Communist.

Besides, supporting Obama “despite” his support of abortion is like supporting Hitler “despite” the gas-oven thing.

[Salvation]

NOT!

[Tainan]

"...human rights and social justice."...this is the latest code phrasing for "Liberation Theology."

[Campion]

Abortion is the biggest offense against social justice in the world today.

[gogeo]

Liberation theology, ver 2.0